She stood on the steps above him, looking down. She was as white as her dress.
“I don’t want to see anybody. I don’t mind losing Del. He doesn’t count. He isn’t worth it. But can you imagine that any man—any man, Uncle Fred, could have kept me—waiting?”
CHAPTER V
THE UGLY DUCKLING
The thing that Frederick Towne got out of his niece’s flight was this. “She wouldn’t let anybody sympathize with her. Simply locked the door of her room, and in the morning she was gone. It has added immeasurably to the gossip.”
His listeners had, however, weighed him in the balance of understanding and sympathy, and had found him wanting. The youth in them sided with Edith. But none of this showed in their manner. They were polite and hospitable to the last. Frederick, ushered out into the storm by Baldy, still saw Jane like a bird, warm in her nest.
“You see,” Baldy said to his sister, when he came back, “how he messed things up.”
Jane nodded. “He doesn’t know——”
“Unemotional”—Baldy’s voice seemed to call on all the gods to listen, “you should see her eyes——”